Leave a Comment · Posted on September 12, 2022
Spit out your Script! With Stacey Sampson
Spit out your Script! A Hive Young Writers’ Day
All experience levels welcome | For young people aged 15-25
Saturday 29th Oct | 10.45am to 4/4.15pm
Howard Building SHU, Opp Millennium Galleries Sheffield (4 minutes from the train station)
Cost: £6 / £4.50 concessions | booking: info@hivesouthyorkshire.com
Got a great idea for a script, but aren’t sure how to get it onto the page? Or are you seeking inspiration to get started? Perhaps you want tips and tricks for sending your scripts out into the world? Join inspirational Sheffield actor and theatre/screen-writer Stacey Sampson to explore the myriad ways IN to getting your script ideas OUT.
Expect a relaxed, fun and supportive day jam-packed with short, sharp, practical activities, advice and writing exercises to bring your characters, scenes and stories to life. We’ll gain inspiration from sharing ways of working and generating ideas together, and we’ll think about the stories we want to tell, and how our knowledge and life experiences can help us. We’ll also consider the key ingredients of script like character and dialogue, as well as techniques around how to create story arcs and keep an audience on the edge of their seat. You’ll end the day with more insights into local and nationwide opportunities to develop, submit and showcase your writing.
If you’ve ever sat looking blankly at a page, got lost in other people’s writing instead of your own, or disappeared down the Google-research rabbit hole never to be seen again… this day is for you. All interests and experience levels are welcome.
Stacey Sampson has been a professional actor since the age of 15, appearing in well-known series such as Luther, The Vice, Coronation Street, Heartbeat and many more, including two series of Bafta award-winning This is England. Her relationship with script stems from this practical place of script-in-action, and she specialises in working collaboratively with young people, communities and theatre companies to create brand new writing for stage and screen.
Stacey’s writing has won the Arvon Award, a Northern Writers’ Award, the Mslexia Novel Competition and gained her a place on the BBC PAF Fellowship and the Arvon-Jerwood Mentoring Scheme. She’s been involved in developing new writers for Sheffield Theatres, Out of Joint, Third Angel, New Writing North and Sky TV. She is currently working on a rap-musical about boxing with Under the Stars, and creation of a show for CAST’s 10th anniversary alongside 60+ youth theatre members.
Top image: Helena Fletcher
Leave a Comment · Posted on September 12, 2022
Linton Kwesi Johnson & Danae Wellington 22nd Oct
We are absolutely thrilled for Hive poet, storyteller, teacher, activist and all-round creative star, Danae Wellington, who will be performing with the legendary Linton Kwesi Johnson at this October’s Off the Shelf on 22nd Oct. This is a huge moment in Hive history! Johnson is a veteran Jamaican poet we much admire, who has helped shape UK poetry for many years particularly reflecting the social and political experiences of the Jamaican diaspora in Britain. Danae is a Jamaican poet with so much heart, soul and talent – we can’t think of a better duo to come together on 22nd October in Sheffield! Wonderful still!
In 2002 Linton Kwesi Johnson became only the second living poet and the first black poet to have his work included in Penguin’s Modern Classics. He was awarded the English PEN Pinter Prize in recognition of his work. In 2022 he celebrates his 70th birthday and 50 years in activism. Mark the occasion with him and hear the ‘father of dub poetry’ perform with our very own Danae Wellington.
Booking here
Leave a Comment · Posted on September 5, 2022
Look How Alive Book Launch
Look How Alive by Lauren Hollingsworth-Smith
Book launch | Dina Sheffield | Date rescheduled TBC | FREE
We’re delighted, Hive young poet, and Rotherham Young Writers alumnus, Lauren Hollingsworth-Smith is launching her first full-length collection Look How Alive (Write Bloody UK) on date TBC at Dina Sheffield. Supporting poets include Iain Whiteley and another (TBC).
DINA is an independent, inclusive and innovative art organisation for Sheffield and beyond and they are delighted to be hosting this free poetry evening to celebrate the launch of Look How Alive, the day after it’s release.
Lauren Hollingsworth-Smith is a poet and artist based in Rotherham and Oxford. She is a member of Hive’s Poetry Collective and The Writing Squad. Lauren’s work has been published in various anthologies including She Will Soar (Pan Macmillan 2020) and Dear Life (Hive 2022). Her debut pamphlet Ugly Bird was a winner of the New Poets Prize 2020. In 2019 she was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year and was highly commended in the Young Northern Writers’ Award. Lauren has performed at various events and festivals, including Ledbury and Kendal Poetry Festivals and Off the Shelf Festival of Words. She studies English and French at Oxford University.
Look How Alive is Lauren’s debut full-length collection (out 1st October 2022)
Ugly Bird is available from The Poetry Business
Leave a Comment · Posted on September 5, 2022
Spit out your Script!
Spit out your Script! A Hive Young Writers’ Day
All experience levels welcome | For young people aged 15-25
Saturday 29th Oct | 10.45am to 4/4.15pm
Cantor Building SHU, Arundel Street, Sheffield (5 minutes from the train station)
Cost: £6.50 / £4.50 concessions | booking: info@hivesouthyorkshire.com
Got a great idea for a script, but aren’t sure how to get it onto the page? Or are you seeking inspiration to get started? Perhaps you want tips and tricks for sending your scripts out into the world? Join inspirational Sheffield actor and theatre/screen-writer Stacey Sampson to explore the myriad ways IN to getting your script ideas OUT.
Expect a relaxed, fun and supportive day jam-packed with short, sharp, practical activities, advice and writing exercises to bring your characters, scenes and stories to life. We’ll gain inspiration from sharing ways of working and generating ideas together, and we’ll think about the stories we want to tell, and how our knowledge and life experiences can help us. We’ll also consider the key ingredients of script like character and dialogue, as well as techniques around how to create story arcs and keep an audience on the edge of their seat. You’ll end the day with more insights into local and nationwide opportunities to develop, submit and showcase your writing.
If you’ve ever sat looking blankly at a page, got lost in other people’s writing instead of your own, or disappeared down the Google-research rabbit hole never to be seen again… this day is for you. All interests and experience levels are welcome.
Stacey Sampson has been a professional actor since the age of 15, appearing in well-known series such as Luther, The Vice, Coronation Street, Heartbeat and many more, including two series of Bafta award-winning This is England. Her relationship with script stems from this practical place of script-in-action, and she specialises in working collaboratively with young people, communities and theatre companies to create brand new writing for stage and screen.
Stacey’s writing has won the Arvon Award, a Northern Writers’ Award, the Mslexia Novel Competition and gained her a place on the BBC PAF Fellowship and the Arvon-Jerwood Mentoring Scheme. She’s been involved in developing new writers for Sheffield Theatres, Out of Joint, Third Angel, New Writing North and Sky TV. She is currently working on a rap-musical about boxing with Under the Stars, and creation of a show for CAST’s 10th anniversary alongside 60+ youth theatre members.
Top image: Helena Fletcher
Leave a Comment · Posted on August 21, 2022
Dream Big Book Launch
Hosted by Hive’s The1Devotion, this event launches the latest print anthology of spoken word by Sheffield’s creative voice and influence groups for care-experienced young people aged 7-25 years: Sheffield Children in Care Council (CiCC) and Sheffield Care Leaver’s Union (SCLU). This second anthology from the groups saw young people once again work with Hive to produce powerful pieces exploring their lives, concerns, thoughts and dreams.
These creative voice and influence groups are spaces where care-experienced children and young people come together to work on projects to express themselves and challenge systems to improve services for themselves and others. At this event they will be sharing their latest anthology of work and they’ll also be sharing their Voice Tapestry, made in collaboration with The Patchwork Garden that will go on to be hung in the Millennium Galleries.
This is an opportunity to see the young people share their book and some readings for the first time and admire their newly created Tapestry.
In partnership with The Children’s Involvement Team, Sheffield City Council and Hive South Yorkshire
Thurs 20 Oct | 4.30pm at Arundel Room, Millennium Gallery, Sheffield
Tickets are available from 30th Sept using the Eventbrite link below:
Dream Big Book Launch Tickets, Thu 20 Oct 2022 at 16:30 | Eventbrite
Image: Peter Martin
Leave a Comment · Posted on August 12, 2022
Interview with Young Adult Fiction Writer Paula Rawsthorne
Sheffield Hallan University Creative Writing student, Lauren Wright, recently interviewed multi-award-winning young adult fiction writer Paula Rawsthorne about all things fiction. Paula chatted with Lauren about everything from how she found her way into becoming a writer, and what it’s been like working with publishers, to how she develops her ideas and what advice she has for young writers starting out.
Lauren Wright is a 21-year-old student studying MA Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. She writes from a variety of genres but tends to sway toward the obscure, alternative perspective and twisted stylised stories. She often writes short stories with a focus on dialogue and character perspective. If you want to read more check out her blog at http://moonshadowbooker.co.uk/
Paula Rawsthorne is a multi-award-winning writer of Young Adult fiction. She discovered that she could write when she won a national BBC writing competition and her comic tale, The Sermon on the Mount was read by Bill Nighy on Radio 4. Her dark stories for adults have been published in anthologies of contemporary literature. Her first YA novel, The Truth about Celia Frost, was a winner of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Undiscovered Voices. Published by Usborne, it was shortlisted for eleven literary awards and won the Leeds, Sefton and Nottingham Book Awards. Her second novel, Blood Tracks, won the Rib Valley Book Award.
Paula’s short stories for teenagers have been commissioned by Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature and published in an anthology of award-winning Young Adult authors. Paula’s third YA novel, Shell, (Scholastic 2018) won the North East Teen Book Award, The Derbyshire Schools’ Book Award and The Hampshire Book Award. Her latest Black Mirror-esque YA novel, The New Boy, was published last year.
Find out more about Paula and her books: www.paularawsthorne.wordpress.com or on Twitter @paularawsthorne
Leave a Comment · Posted on August 11, 2022
My Name is Adebiyi by Najma Ahmed
My Name is Adebiyi by Najma Ahmed
Read by Kenneth Omole
The following monologue started life in a workshop working with actor and writer John Rwoth-Omack. Hear from Adebiyi a street vendor in the city of Lagos. He’s had enough.
“The truth is, even when they aren’t driving their trucks up, snooping around my stall laughing, just the thought of them chokes me. I hate seeing them and feeling powerless, standing with my head down so I don’t catch their eye. It’s why I’m here.”
Leave a Comment · Posted on August 10, 2022
We Are Everything Chapbook from Mixing Roots
Recently we launched two amazing anthologies at an open mic event at the iconic Leadmill Sheffield. One of those anthologies was the chapbook We Are Everything, from our Mixing Roots project run by Warda Yasin & Danae Wellington. It wasn’t long before we sold out! We’ve now had more printed and details of how you can order one are below.
We are also working towards a full-length Mixing Roots Anthology to be released later in the year. If you are a young woman of colour who writes, aged 14 to 30, be you just starting your writing journey, or well on your path, we’d love to hear from you.
About We Are Everything
Mixing Roots brings together girls and young women (aged 13+) from different backgrounds & cultures in a supportive space to talk, share and write about everything from the roots we come from, and what has been passed down to us, to who we are today. This anthology chapbook celebrates a selection of writing by young women of colour, notably through recent Mixing Roots programmes working with girls across South Yorkshire and beyond.
Purchase We Are Everything chapbook/pamphlet
56 poems by 34 young women writers of colour. A wonderful gift poetry lovers | £5 (inc.P&P)
Email books@hivesouthyorkshire.com with the number of copies you’d like & how you’d like to pay (Paypal or bank transfer). We’ll get back promptly confirming the amount with details of how to pay.
About Mixing Roots
Mixing Roots brings together girls and young women (aged 13+)
from different backgrounds & cultures, in a supportive space, to talk, share and write about everything from the roots we come from, and what has been passed down to us, to who we are today. This anthology celebrates a selection of writing by young women of colour, notably through recent Mixing Roots programmes working with girls across South Yorkshire and beyond.
Mixing Roots is led by Warda Yassin with support from fellow writer and teacher Danae Wellington. Warda won the New Poets Prize 2018 judged by Kayo Chingonyi for her debut pamphlet, Tea with Cardamom. Both poets have an anthology of work forthcoming with Sile Sibanda in 2023 from The Poetry Business.
Below, photos from our Leadmill launch courtesy of Tim Dennel
Leave a Comment · Posted on August 9, 2022
If Buildings Could Speak
A summer creative writing workshop for ages 14-19 in Barnsley
Thurs 18 Aug | 1:30pm – 4pm | Free
What would buildings or streets tell us if they could speak? What have they seen and what have they heard? What tales would they tell us, and what do they observe about us strange humans who move through them?
Join us at The Civic on Thursday 18th August at 1.30 for a wonderfully creative (and free!) workshop all things words with writer Vicky Morris. We’ll be exploring some of the stories and histories of the places around us, and take a walk, notepad in hand, gathering inspiration.
No experience necessary, just an interest in words and an urge to be creative!
This workshop is part of Teenage Wildlife, a Historic England funded project exploring 70 years-old youth culture and teenage experience in the Eldon Street Heritage Action Zone.
The workshop is part of a series of happenings for young writers at The Civic Barnsley. A selection of work from this, and the wider Teenage Wildlife project, may form part of a publication or be included in an exhibition later in the year.
To book a free place email hiveywriters@gmail.com with your name, age and contact number (for text message)
